claude-hooks/docs/how-to/restore-backup.md

How to Restore Your Work from a Backup

When to use this guide: Your Claude session crashed, lost context, or you need to recover previous work.

Quick Recovery (Most Common)

If you just lost context but your files are still there:

1. Check for session recovery files:

   ls -la | grep -E "(LAST_SESSION|ACTIVE_TODOS|RECOVERY_GUIDE)"
   

2. Read your session summary:

   cat LAST_SESSION.md
   

3. Continue from your todos:

   cat ACTIVE_TODOS.md
   

This covers 90% of recovery scenarios. If you need to restore actual files, continue below.

Full File Recovery

Find Available Backups

List all available backups:

claude-hooks list-backups

Or check the backups directory directly:

ls -la .claude_hooks/backups/

You'll see entries like:

🗂️  backup_20240115_143022
   📅 2024-01-15T14:30:22
   📝 context_threshold

🗂️  backup_20240115_141856  
   📅 2024-01-15T14:18:56
   📝 critical_operation

Choose the Right Backup

For context-related crashes: Use the most recent context_threshold backup
For command failures: Use the backup before the problematic operation
For file corruption: Use the backup with the timestamp just before your issue

Restore Files from Backup

1. Navigate to the backup directory:

   cd .claude_hooks/backups/backup_20240115_143022
   

2. Check what files are available:

   ls -la files/
   

3. Copy specific files back:

   cp files/important_script.py ../../
   

   Or restore all modified files:

   cp -r files/* ../../
   

Restore from Git Backup

If git backups were enabled:

1. Check git history:

   git log --oneline | grep "Claude hooks auto-backup"
   

2. See what changed in a backup commit:

   git show abc1234
   

3. Restore specific files:

   git checkout abc1234 -- path/to/file.py
   

4. Or reset to a backup completely (careful - loses recent work):

   git reset --hard abc1234
   

Restore Session State

If you want to continue exactly where you left off:

1. Restore the patterns database:

   cp .claude_hooks/backups/backup_20240115_143022/state/patterns/* .claude_hooks/patterns/
   

2. Review the session state:

   cat .claude_hooks/backups/backup_20240115_143022/state/session.json
   

3. Check what commands were running:

   jq '.commands_executed[-5:]' .claude_hooks/backups/backup_20240115_143022/state/session.json
   

Emergency Recovery

If something went very wrong and you need to recover everything:

1. Find the most recent emergency backup:

   ls -la .claude_hooks/emergency_backup.json
   

2. Extract the session data:

   jq '.session_state.modified_files[]' .claude_hooks/emergency_backup.json
   

3. Manually locate and recover files using the file paths from the emergency backup

Validate Your Recovery

After restoring:

1. Check that your files are correct:

   git status
   git diff
   

2. Verify Claude Hooks is working:

   claude-hooks status
   

3. Test a simple command to ensure hooks are functioning:

   echo 'print("test")' > test_recovery.py
   python3 test_recovery.py
   rm test_recovery.py
   

Prevention for Next Time

To make future recovery easier:

• Enable git backups: Set "git_enabled": true in config/settings.json
• Lower backup threshold: Set "backup_threshold": 0.75 to backup more frequently
• Create manual backups before risky operations: Run claude-hooks backup

Troubleshooting

No backups found: Check if hooks were properly installed with claude-hooks status

Backup files corrupted: Try the git backup method or emergency recovery

Can't find recent work: Check if files are in a different directory - backups preserve the relative path structure

Git backups not working: Ensure git is initialized in your project: git init